EDITORIAL PAGE (September 16, 1991)

This country can’t afford the labor dispute its army of public servants have thrust upon it, the largest strike in our history. But even less can it afford to do other than support the government’s efforts to stand fast and hold the line on public spending.

For 110,000 public servants to strike in the midst of a recession is unconscionable. While other Canadians must live with wage freezes, with the possibility that less business means layoffs, with the knowledge that their employer may be forced into bankruptcy during these difficult times, members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) have walked off the job to back their demands for more.

Public servants already have greater job security than any other Canadian working person and they enjoy what is probably the most generous pension plan in the country. But that isn’t enough. Apart from the wage issue, the union is anxious that its power base not be diminished, so a major grievance is the government’s efforts to contract work out. More work contracted out means fewer PSAC members which means less power for the union leadership. Public servants are supposed to serve the public. But when was the last time this union suggested a way to spend the public’s money — our money — more wisely? With a federal deficit this year projected at $30 billion, even with a wage freeze, PSAC should support efforts to contract out more work in efforts to cut government spending. That would lighten the load on its members (which PSAC says are already overworked), help reduce government spending and steer more taxpayers’ money to non-government enterprises, creating jobs in the private sector where companies live or die by how well they perform.

But the union’s resolve to bring the country to its knees does not arise from any great injustice PSAC members are enduring. The first ever general strike by the public service has not been called because of some great hardships being suffered. The union’s ambitions stem from union leaders’ hatred of the Progressive Conservative party, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Tory government policies that have nothing to do with public servants’ working conditions.

The union doesn’t like the GST and it doesn’t like the Free Trade agreement. It still harbors a grudge against Mulroney for his efforts to entrench the Meech Lake accord in the constitution, it objects to his efforts to get government spending under control and stands against a myriad of other policies initiated by his cabinet. This strike, in fact, is more about discrediting a government than it is about negotiating a new collective agreement.

Such partisan politics cannot justify a strike that holds every citizen hostage to union demands and threatens the very welfare of the nation. Flights out of Pearson International Airport, the first day of the strike, came to a virtual standstill. That made PSAC’s position clear, but at what cost? The already suffering tourist industry doesn’t need Canada’s image abroad to be further tarnished with stories of travelers being stranded in Mississauga. And disrupted travel plans are another headache recession-torn businesses can do without.

There’s no doubt that PSAC members are being asked to make a sacrifice, to accept a one-year wage freeze this year and accept 3% annual increases for the next two years. In the heady days of the mid-1980s, that would have been extreme medicine. Today, however, it’s no more than those in the private sector have to live with. And, if the Bank of Canada’s fight on inflation is as successful as it appears to be, increases of 3% could well match the inflation rate.

PSAC is one of the obstacles to getting government spending under control. It may not be the only one, or the largest one, but it is one the government must overcome. This federal government and its predecessors have a lot to answer for in how they have spent the public’s money. But, for the sake of now putting the government’s financial house in order, public servants are going to have to accept that Ottawa just can’t continue spending money it doesn’t have.